Archive

October 6, 2022

A man in Missouri who was convicted of committing healthcare fraud through various durable medical equipment companies has been sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to repay $7.5 million. Jamie McCoy, who owned or operated AE Wellness LLC, Summit Medical Supply, Patriot Medical Supply, and DME Device Co., had worked in conjunction with marketing firms and a telemedicine doctor to cause fraudulent claims derived from illegal kickbacks to be submitted to Medicare and TRICARE. After the scheme was discovered and McCoy and AE Wellness were suspended from further participation, two of McCoy’s associates opened the other companies to continue the fraud, while concealing McCoy’s role in the operation. USAO EDMO

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medical Devices and DME, Medicare, Other Government Health Programs,

October 3, 2022

Medical sales representative Steven Monaco has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for orchestrating two fraud schemes that led to multimillion dollar losses to federal, state, and private health insurance plans. In the first scheme, Monaco arranged for a doctor’s medical assistant to be placed on the payroll of a medical diagnostic laboratory in exchange for all of the doctor’s labwork. In the second scheme, Monaco arranged for doctors to sign medically unnecessary prescriptions for expensive compounded medications, on behalf of patients they never evaluated, in exchange for illegal kickbacks. Monaco received $36,000 from the first scheme and $350,000 from the second scheme, and caused over $4.6 million in losses to the insurance plans. USAO NJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, Compounding Pharmacy Fraud, Healthcare Fraud, Laboratory and IDTF,

September 30, 2022

The owners and operators of three home health care companies in Illinois, Patricia and Felix Omorogbe, have been sentenced to a combined 3.5 years in prison and ordered to pay a combined $8 million in restitution for paying illegal kickbacks to patient marketers in exchange for referrals of Medicare beneficiaries. According to the DOJ, in addition to the kickbacks, Patricia Omorogbe, a registered nurse, also falsely certified that she performed assessments on patients, causing false claims to be submitted to Medicare. DOJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Home Health and Hospice, Medicare, Provider Fraud,

September 26, 2022

Biogen Inc. has agreed to pay $900 million to resolve allegations by former employee Michael Bawduniak that the pharmaceutical company paid illegal kickbacks to physicians in order to induce prescriptions of their multiple sclerosis drugs, causing false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid. According to Bawduniak, over a five-year period, Biogen paid kickbacks in the form of speaker honoraria, training fees, consulting fees, and free meals. The vast majority of the settlement proceeds (over $840 million) will go to the federal government, while the remainder will be divided among 15 states. USAO MA

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medicaid, Medicare, Pharma Fraud, Whistleblower Case,

September 2, 2022

Bayer Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, will pay $40 million to settle claims initiated by a whistleblower alleging that the pharmaceutical manufacturer violated the False Claims Act by engaging in off-label marketing, unlawful kickbacks, and misreporting of safety risks with respect to its drugs Trasylol, Avelox, and Baycol. The whistleblower, former Bayer marketing employee Laurie Simpson, will receive approximately $11 million from the settlement. DOJ; USAO MN; USAO NJ

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Off-Label and Unapproved Use, Pharma Fraud, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

September 1, 2022

Philips RS North America LLC, formerly known as Respironics, will pay over $24 million to settle claims that it provided unlawful inducements to DME suppliers in the form of physician prescribing data that the DME suppliers could use in their marketing efforts. The case was initiated by a qui tam complaint filed by former Respironics employee Jeremy Orling, who will receive a whistleblower award of approximately $4.3 million. DOJ; USAO SC

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medical Devices and DME, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

August 30, 2022

Vision Quest Industries, Inc., which manufactures knee braces and other durable medical equipment, has agreed to pay $2.25 million to resolve claims that it violated the Anti-Kickback Statute by paying commissions to an independent sales representative based on VQ’s net revenue for each knee brace ordered by a particular purchaser which then, in turn, submitted claims for payment to Medicare. The settlement with VQ follows earlier settlements in 2020 and 2019. USAO MN

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medical Devices and DME,

August 23, 2022

Essilor International and related subsidiaries, which manufacture, market, and distribute optical lenses and equipment to produce optical lenses—have agreed to pay $22 million to resolve federal and state allegations of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. In two separate qui tam suits, former sales managers Laura Thompson and Lisa Brez, and Christie Rudolph alleged that Essilor violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act by paying illegal kickbacks to optometrists and opthalmologists to induce purchases of their products for patients, including patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid. $5.6 million of the total settlement was allocated between states that were parties to the settlements, and $16.4 million to the federal government. DOJ; USAO EDPA; USAO NDTX; CO; CT; SD (see later CA settlement)

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, FCA State, Healthcare Fraud, Medicaid, Medical Devices and DME, Medicare, Whistleblower Case,

July 27, 2022

ca Glenn Pair and Markuetric Stringfellow will spend 70 and 78 months in prison, respectively, and pay over $5 million each in restitution for defrauding three States’ Medicaid programs of more than $5 million, and for receiving $1.8 million in kickbacks from participating laboratories. The two owned and operated Do-It-4-The Hood Corporation in North Carolina and later expanded to Georgia. They targeted Medicare-eligible children, enrolled them in their programs, and required them to submit urine specimens for drug testing. Drug testing was in turn billed to Medicaid by complicit laboratories, who then paid kickbacks after receiving Medicaid reimbursement. Through their Wrights Care Services LLC franchise in South Carolina, the two filed fraudulent Medicaid claims for mental health counseling, going so far as to host a “note party,” upon learning of a Medicare audit of Wrights Care, to cover up their scheme by creating false billing records to substantiate their fraudulent Medicaid claims. USAO WDNC, USAO SC

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA State, Healthcare Fraud, Laboratory and IDTF, Lack of Medical Necessity, Medicaid, Medicare, Provider Fraud,

July 22, 2022

Medical device manufacturer Biotronik Inc. has agreed to pay nearly $13 million to resolve allegations of paying kickbacks to physicians in order to induce use of their implantable cardiac devices, and causing false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid. The alleged violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act were brought to light in a qui tam suit by Jeffrey Bell and Andrew Schmid, both former sales representatives for Biotronik, who as part of the settlement will receive a $2.1 million relator’s share. USAO CDCA

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Healthcare Fraud, Medicaid, Medical Devices and DME, Medicare, Whistleblower Case, Whistleblower Rewards,

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